An online article for you

Dear Children,

I invite you to look at an article that includes mention of me. I am honored to be part of this group of environmentalists. Click here.

Love, Nana Greta

How about an event on October 24?

Dear Children,

This photograph is to show you that I had fun along the way when I was walking my 1150 miles from New Orleans to the Canadian border. This fancy setup was in front of a house in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Most of you will recognize this beautiful woman who walked almost 50 miles with me in July, right before she went to Brazil to teach in the PanAmerican School in Bahia. She is my daughter, Ms. Sofia Hart, and she is the one who suggested that I have a blog especially for children. I'm so glad she did.

About your comments: thanks to all of you who wrote nice things to me. I love to hear from you. I apologize to those whose names I missed before:

Gai and Igor and someone who didn't write his or her name - thanks for your comments. Let me know if I missed anyone else.

Billy and Chris, when I was your age I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was around 14 I wanted to be a writer and called myself Inky because I always got ink on my fingers when I wrote with a fountain pen. Now that I'm grown up I keep finding new things that I want to do.

What can you do for the environment at your school? A special event on October 24 which is the International Day of Climate Action. Talk with your teachers about it. You can get lots of information on this website: www.350.org. You can register your event and it will be counted along with almost 1500 other events in over 100 countries. It doesn't have to be something complicated and difficult.

One requirement for the 350.org International Day of Climate Change is that you produce a photograph with the number 350 in a creative way. You can see examples on the website.

I hope to hear from you about your ideas.

Love, Nana Greta

PS - Robert, a late happy birthday for 9/9/99

Now that I'm home, what next?

My last week on the road included many interesting sights. I thought these horses, under the trees with the flowers in the foreground, were beautiful.

I watched these girls fishing with their father - they caught three little fishes which they were going to cook up for breakfast the next day. I thought to myself: "These children are two of the grandchildren I'm waling for."

The last day was very rainy and windy, but nothing bothered me because I was so happy. Here we're all laughing because my umbrella turned inside out.

Dear Children,

I'm at home now, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's a beautiful, sunny day in September and I just did a little work in my garden, which got neglected because I wasn't here to do my share of taking care of it through the summer.

When I came in from the garden I read all the new comments on the blog, and I went back to March to find some of your comments there. I may have missed some so if I don't mention your name please remind me. Today I will write to all of you, whether you have written a comment or not - I appreciate your reading even if you don't respond. Here are the names of children who didn't get on the list last time:

Susan, Barbara, Anya, Anabela, Guilherme, Katie, Rani, David, and Chloe - Thanks for adding your comments. I will try to answer all you said and asked but not by name.

Coins - Unfortunately I didn't keep count of all the coins I collected, including those that others found when they were walking with me and contributed to the collection. Some of the coins are very old and damaged, and I plan to take a picture of them to show you. I think only a bank will accept them. My daughter, Ms. Hart, found a lot of coins, including dimes and quarters. Sometimes other people who were walking with me found bigger coins while I kept finding pennies. My guess is that all in all we collected about $5.00, but I spent some of the coins as I went along, so we'll never know.

New York/New York City - During my walk I didn't get very close to New York City at all. I was walking in the state of New York, through the cities of Binghamton, Syracuse, Cortland, Watertown, Canton and Potsdam, and many other villages, ending up in Rouses Point on the border with Canada and the state of Vermont.

Working for the climate - Many of you are doing good things for the Planet Earth, at home and at school. I like hearing about your efforts to recycle (including recycled art and posters), to use less water and electricity, and to learn more about global warming. It's wonderful when you share what you're doing and what you've learned with other students and with your family. Good job! I hope your student council (STUCO) can do good things for the environment.

When you grow up - I was very moved by your thoughts about what you would like to do when you grow up. I will work hard for you to have a better world to grow up in. Actually, whatever your occupation is - engineer, actress, teacher, nurse or doctor, etc. - you will have many opportunities to fight pollution and global warming. And during your time off you will be able to do things like walking a long distance to call attention to climate change.

I want to thank all of you for your enthusiasm and your kind words about my courage, and your wishes for my safety. You make me want to work all the harder for the Earth.

So what shall we do next? Please tell me what you're thinking and doing. Maybe you want to plan an event for October 24 when people all around the world will be doing things to demonstrate their desire for more action on the problem of Climate Change. I hope to hear from you. (And Happy Birthday to Nani and Anabela!)

Love, Nana Greta

Today I reach my destination

Dear Children,

Today I'm going to write just a short message to you because I need to walk my last nine miles to get to the end of Route 11. Here I am at the 25 mile mark.

I wanted to show you this photograph of a wind farm in Northern New York State - there were dozens of windmills. Do you remember the video of little windmills down in Alabama? I took a video of these, up close, and I will post it early next week.

And this photo reminds me of a picture of this farm machine I took way back, also in Alabama. This time it has a windmill behind it. I think it's cool!

Please check the blog again soon. I want to answer the questions that you asked me but don't have time today.

Love, Nana Greta

NICE TO HEAR FROM ALL OF YOU!

A sunflower and some sheep.

A northern barn, built so that the snow can slide off the roof.

A river canyon in Watertown. Remember how there were no rocks down on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. There certainly are rocks in Northern New York State.

I've seen many deer crossings but here is a cow crossing.

Dear Children -

This is a message to all the children who have been reading my blog, especially the new ones who posted so many new messages to me.

I have three dozen messages to respond to so this time I will write to everyone at once.

Luiz H., Cela, Pedro 5B, Sabrina, Lua, Luis, Felipe, Marco Silveira, Omar Abbas, Ana Maria, Bia, Marilia, Susan, Fernanda, Ivan, Juliana, Jaqueline, Maria Miguel, Julia, Larissa, Malu, Rafael, Stephanie, Melissa, Amanda, Alice, Rone, Jose Vitor, Billy and Cris, and Christina:

You all are so wonderful, you give me a great boost, new courage, and hope for the future.

Many of you said you would like to do what I'm doing - you would like to walk, to see the states in the US, to do something for the environment. Some of you thought you wouldn't have the courage or the will to walk so much. Let me tell you something: all of you will be able to something like this some day. You will have energy and courage for the things you really believe in. I hope you will have a safe and diversified world to live in, with animals for you to love and care for, and much beauty and wonder.

Here are some of the animals I've seen: deer, goats, sheep, cows, horses, rabbits, squirrels, dogs, cats, a bear, wild turkeys, many kinds of birds, a snake, frogs, turtles. Unfortunately I've also seen animals that were run over by cars: armadillos, raccoons, opossums, and some of the ones I mentioned above.

I call my motor home a gypsy wagon because I've always liked to wander and I've admired the life of gypsies. I like to pretend that I'm a gypsy. Other things I call it are: motor home, van, RV, truck, vehicle.

About public transportation in Brazil: I can understand that sometimes the buses in big cities are not safe or comfortable. But it is wonderful in Brazil that you can get almost anywhere by bus, much more so than in the US. It's not good for everyone to have to have a car for everything they do, and I hope that we can work to improve public transportation here and in Brazil.

Some of you mentioned things you do at home to help the environment. That's excellent - keep doing what you can. It's good to be aware about not wasting water, electricity, paper, food.

I wish all of you could join me for a day. I'm getting very close to the end of my walk. I will send you some more photos, and I hope to hear from you again.

Love, Nana Greta

A little message

This morning I am leaving the nice place on Lake George where I've spent a short vacation with family members, including my little granddaughter from Brazil. I will walk on Route 11 for the next eight days and arrive at the end of my journey on Saturday, August 29.

I received a wonderful batch of messages from a group of children in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. They put a big smile on my face and I loved their ideas and questions. Children from Bahia, I will respond to you as soon as possible, hopefully this weekend. It's not always easy to get on the internet, but I hope to find a library tomorrow where they have WiFi.

Now I must leave for the six hour trip back to where I stopped walking last Saturday.

Love, Nana Greta

Nana Greta has walked 1000 miles

This is me near Pulaski in New York State, as I complete 1ooo miles of my walk. I have about 170 to go.

Remember the long line of hay bales covered in white plastic? Not far from them I saw this strange sight peeking out from behind the corn. What do you think it is?
Well, well - someone had fun painting this huge caterpillar complete with antennae.

Here is my friend Tim, who walked almost 100 miles with me, some in PA and some in NY. He is peering into a little house, which I think is a shelter for children to wait in for the school bus when the weather is bad.

Love, Nana Greta